Loring drug center still in planning stage

LIMESTONE – A decision on establishing the state’s first long-term residential drug treatment program on the Loring Commerce Centre is still some time away, but a group looking at the possibility has visited a similar facility in New York.

The proposal by the Maine Lighthouse Corp. for such a facility at the former U.S. Air Force base was made to the Loring Development Authority in May. The proposal may be presented to the LDA as early as its October meeting.

“We are not there yet,” Brian Hamel, president of the LDA, said Monday. “We have gone to New York, and we are discussing the program.

“No decision has been made,” he said. “It may even be too early to present it to the board at their September meeting.”

Hamel, other LDA officials and representatives from the Aroostook Mental Health Center and the Maine Lighthouse Corp. visited the Daytop Inc. center in July at Rheinbeck, N.Y. The center is the model for the proposal at the LCC.

Hamel said there is still quite a bit of groundwork to be done before the proposal is brought to trustees.

The LCC already is the home of the Defense Finance and Accounting Center, the Loring Job Corps Center, the Maine Winter Sports Center, Maine Readiness Sustainment Maintenance Center, the Telford Group Inc. and Sitel Corp., along with small business enterprises.

The Maine Lighthouse Corp., a nonprofit group based in Bar Harbor, tried earlier this year to develop a center at the former naval base at Cutler, but ran into opposition to the project.

The proposed long-term residential drug treatment center would be available for anyone, but organizers believe professionals including doctors, lawyers, teachers, ministers and priests, and police officers would be a target group.

After members of the Maine Lighthouse Corp. met with Hamel and visited the LCC in May, Hamel had said the proposal could fit into commercial or educational zones at the former Air Force base.

Kathleen Miller, Maine Lighthouse Corp. executive secretary, said she thought the visit to New York went well.

“I had visited the [New York] center before, but I believe we were all favorably impressed with the program on this latest visit,” she said Tuesday. “We met with administration, other workers and even with people in the program.

“We believe there is a place for this type of center in Maine,” she said. “People from Aroostook [County] seemed comfortable with such a facility at Loring.”

Miller said Maine needs such a center because the cost of drug addiction in Maine is high. She said a study showed the costs of drug addiction reaches over $1.5 billion annually in Maine.

It could take a year to create a facility at Loring, if the local decision is positive. Miller said about $10 million from the private sector needs to be raised to make it happen. The project would be a collaboration between private and public money.

“People need this kind of treatment in Maine,” she said. “We can’t offer it now.”

She said present facilities in Maine offer 30-day programs, and that is not enough. “There is a correlation between the length of stay for treatment, and success,” she said.

The program at Loring would start with 25 residents and could grow to 225 residents, utilizing two buildings. Such a facility would bring in more than 100 jobs, she said, including medical staff, counselors, social workers, teachers and facility managers.

“The Loring people are interested in job creation, and we want to come to the table with adequate financial backing,” Miller said. “We are in the process, and it is a process of due diligence.”